Beyoncé’s “Formation”

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Clarissa

February 10, 2016

So I watched Beyoncé’s new hit “Formation.” The video is sensationally talented. I’m not very visually oriented but even I can see that it’s a freaking work of art. Not a single frame is out of place. There is so much meaning to every image. Gosh, I could be watching this video for hours and not get enough. This video inspires one’s intellect to work, and I suggest watching it if you need a jolt of enthusiasm for intellectual labor. I had no idea such talented videos were being created.

The lyrics are great, too, strong, meaningful, original. Good lyrics.

The music, however, fails to live up. The stunning artistic feat of the video deserves more than this vapid imitation of Lady Gaga. I know Beyoncé’s fans will be unhappy, and hey, I love Beyoncé, she’s extraordinarily talented. And I love Lady Gaga, too, she’s fantastic. But the insistent Lady Gagaization of the entire music space needs to stop.

Beyoncé could have done a lot more to live up to the video.

P.S. People are now saying that the video is a cynical ploy to appeal to white folks while betraying the interests of black people. Obviously, it’s not for me to say how black viewers will respond to the video but I absolutely insist that it has great artistic value irrespective of the race of the spectators.

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3 responses to “Beyoncé’s “Formation””

Stringer Bell

February 10, 2016

http://www.orchestratedpulse.com/2016/02/beyonce-slays-black-people/

I liked this article. The idea that consuming the ‘right’ kind of media is substitute for political action is lazy and dangerous.

“I think parts of this video are as radical a seeding of visionary futures as the lunch counter sit-ins,” one author says. Wait a minute. The lunch counter sit-ins actually happened. They weren’t a music video, and they weren’t a cultural representation. The sit-ins shut down businesses and sometimes even whole towns, upending day-to-day realities in the fight against racial segregation. People got hurt. It’s beyond me how those insurgent events can be favorably compared with a Beyoncé song that says “Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper.”

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 10, 2016
  
  It is nothing short of tragic that people lead such impoverished lives that they can’t even begin to grasp the concept of art. Judging artistic production on the basis of the artist’s life events, politics or pronouncements outside of each specific work of art is a sign of extremely low culture and intellectual impoverishment.
  
  This journalist has robbed himself of pretty much the best that human experience has to offer in favor of pedestrian judgmentalism that has persecuted art throughout human history.
  
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  1. Stringer Bell
    
    February 10, 2016
    
    “This journalist has robbed himself of pretty much the best that human experience has to offer”
    
    Speaking of which, we visited the new contemporary art museum in LA last weekend.
    
    http://www.thebroad.org/
    
    I know next to nothing about art but this place blew my mind. Can’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon in the city. I’ve also discovered that I like contemporary art so much more than ornate, boring paintings of madonna and child and cherubic angels.
    
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